Leaders from Pepsi, AECOM and SAP share their best benefits strategies

Leaders from PepsiCo, AECOM and SAP share their best benefits strategies

August 2, 2023 5:30 AM

A man is speaking to a crowd of engaged listeners in business clothing.

The countdown is on to Employee Benefit News' revamped conference, Benefits at Work, taking place Sept. 27-29 in beautiful San Diego. We're excited to gather leading HR and benefits experts for three days of insightful discussions on building a workplace that can support employees today, and into an uncertain future.

Nearly 40 incredible speakers will discuss today's top issues: from creating affordable benefits packages and designing inclusive mental health care, to finding the right level of flexibility for your workforce and managing new regulations around pay transparency.

Here's a sneak peek at what some of our speakers — including leaders from AECOM, PepsiCo, SAP, Walmart, Grainger and Crunchyroll — are planning to share. If you haven't already secured your r egistration for Benefits at Work, you can do so here.

Bernie Knobbe, head of global benefits and well-being, AECOM

Hear him speak on: Creating whole-person health and wellness

"Benefits professionals are our own worst enemies," Knobbe recently told EBN. "We don't know how to tell the story well, and there's resistance to change. The traditional benefits way of communicating is very insurance-sounding, or legal and compliance-oriented. But we need to communicate to people as humans and consumers."

Read more:

From DEI audits to AI tools, how AECOM personalizes benefits for 50,000 workers

Jessy Rosales, VP of total rewards North America, SAP

Hear her speak on: How to invest in the right benefits

"When you analyze your health plan, your health insurance, you usually see hypertension, diabetes, MSK, oncology as core issues or challenges a population is going through," Rosales has told EBN about investing in smart benefits programs. "So when you start working toward those [through a lens of inclusion], you will see an impact on your health insurance costs. And that's on top of having people more engaged — offering these [virtual] solutions is obviously a lever for us in HR from an attraction and retention perspective. But from the company's perspective, there is a very, very clear financial impact."

Read more:

How SAP leans on telemedicine to deliver 'whole-person care'

Ed Ligonde, partner and market director, Nava Benefits

Hear him speak on: Debunking benefits myths

"We're no stranger to the fact that managing employee benefits is the second or third biggest line item expense after managing your number one asset: people," Ligonde has said of his advisory, Nielsen Benefits Group, which was recently acquired by tech-enabled brokerage Nava Benefits. "We see an incredible opportunity to be change-makers in healthcare."

Read more:

Nava acquires Nielsen Benefits in a move to makeover the employer and broker relationship

Dannii Portsmouth, HR VP, PepsiCo Beverage North America, West Division

Hear her speak on: How benefits can build a culture of "mental health allies"

"The employee experience is critical — and it has to be great not just during the attraction stage but each and every day of the employee life cycle," Portsmouth previously shared with EBN. "We sort it into three buckets, the most significant of which is an employee's interaction with their leader and if they feel seen, included and developed. The second bucket is their team, and how much they feel a part of that team, if there's a sense of belonging. And the third is the environment — whether physically in one of our offices or in a virtual space — and how easy Pepsi can make it for them to access work and all the things that go around that, including our benefits and our purpose."

Read more:

Pepsi's HR team leans on data to build a better corporate culture

Dr. Madhavi Vemireddy, co-CEO, Cleo

Hear her speak on: Technology in healthcare

"Having a clinician at the table really allows you to identify not just the right direction clinically — what can drive value and improvement in health for families — but also cost savings for the employer or health plan, because as we educate families and get them the right resources, we mitigate certain risks. It's that whole umbrella, and all of that needs to work together to drive the outcomes you're looking for."

Read more:

At caregiving platform Cleo, 2 CEOs are better than 1